LETTERS / Preaching and Practicing Democracy

Published Monday, March 4, 2013 at 3:51 pm

Dear Editor,

We’re regularly told about the wonderfulness of “our democracy” but those who preach at us don’t practice it themselves. “Our governments” propaganda to promote its actions is deceptive, distorted, steadily spread and succeeds because you believe selected parts of the tale, told by those you mistrust anyway. If your information comes from official government/media sources, including history taught in government schools, you know nothing.

The Iraqi, who threw shoes at baby Bush, was sent to prison, but not the criminal, who, lying, started the Iraq war, massacred millions, and ordered torture. Justice doesn’t exist because the powerful masterminds of the worst butcheries aren’t prosecuted since they control the system.

Death penalty supporters are silent about the powers that shouldn’t be; they say nothing about large scale, state created, murders. Peace is in the hands of those who are also the world’s main producers/sellers of weapons, the organized crime gang now trying to control citizen’s weapons. Billions are wasted on the Pentagon while children starve without healthcare.

Our consumer society creates a threat to public safety; continuous advertising as invitation to crime teaching that life’s meaning comes from possessions. Consume they keep saying, because he who has nothing is nothing.

Who’s guilty; “terrorists” defending their rights to their own land or “capitalists” who attack the world for the reward of billions? The world rewards its official criminals; Wal-Mart and other multi-national corporations ban trade unions violating international law. America cites lack of union acceptance for helping other countries find democracy.

Dictatorships, rogue politicians and international corporations have mutually indulged each other while training us that we must pay for the beating we get and the greed that plunders us.

There’re many examples of denial of justice and common sense: why are drugs illegal? What moral authority does America have to condemn its drug suppliers when it has more drug addicts than any other country in the world? Why don’t the mass media, in their dedication to the war against the scourge of drugs, ever let slip that it’s Afghanistan which provides most of the worlds heroin; the country America occupies. Drugs aren’t legalized because they’re a great excuse for invasions, and provide huge profits for too big to fail banks from money-laundering.

It’s an aggressive parasite that kills its host. Long after we’ve finished wrecking the ecosystem which sustains us what will be the best thing that could be said about the human race? Climate change is a greenie conspiracy you know, by thousands of poorly paid scientists all round the world in a diabolical plot; much better to believe the oil, coal and gas baron billionaires and their media cronies, who certainly have our best interests at heart.

Politicians are predators who, mostly, don’t rape, rob or murder with their own hands but send others to do it. There are two sets of laws in America; one for the well connected, and one for us. What bank or executive has been prosecuted for their involvement in the largest financial fraud since the Great depression?

Car insurance companies reward good behavior but Health insurers offer little incentive to be healthy as their premiums rise almost daily.

Our voices aren’t heard, drowned out by the corporate media noise. We’re forced to tolerate the mistakes of those who make the bad policies. Welcome to modern America, where fear is normal; rules and regulations allegedly aimed at “keeping you safe” are without common sense or constitutionalism.

Citizens who can’t develop their own world views without first asking “What does everyone else think” set themselves up for an endless future of slavery.

With so many obvious government crimes “Our government” is attacking whistleblowers so there must be some “big” things to hide.

“Why can’t everyone else be reasonable and do it my way” avoids the spirit of compromise necessary for successful creative steps, though it makes life easy for advocacy groups who want to shake you down for another round of “donations” to pay for the never-ending fight.

Christians are concerned that religious freedoms are being battered in America but they also want Judeo-Christians to dominate the culture. They can’t have it both ways.

America debates how many jobs are exported, how many grandparents to put on a cat food diet, how many working poor to deny healthcare to, and whether the people who do most of our dirty jobs should be allowed to become citizens, as executives at firms that got taxpayer bailouts continue to collect generous government compensation packages.

If government can’t help citizens, it has no right to forbid them from defending themselves. Is it fighting crime when you spy on millions, militarize police, encourage neighbor to rat out neighbor, define thousands of harmless activities as “domestic terrorism”, conduct checkpoints and raids, lock people up without trials, kick down doors in the middle of the night, or arbitrarily deny people the freedom to travel?

We’ve reached the point where we’re okay with, or at best complacent about, government using violence to make examples of those with unapproved opinions and/or political activities. We’ve lost our values that make free societies free. Excessive, militarized raids on unapproved opposition have been going on for years and are a sad indication that we lost those values a long time ago.